Baby Jogger City Select Review by Catcymraeg

I had brushed past a comparison of the BJCS and the icandy peach blossom when heavily pregnant with twins and my brain hadn’t registered the difference.   Big mistake.  After a very quick turnaround we bought a BJCS and love it.  This is my review with my experience with twins.

Chassis/Basket/Hoods

I prefer how it folds compared to the peach.  The handle doesn’t clunk to the floor so it’s protected and it’s got a nifty little catch to stop it opening out again.  I find it very light and easy to carry and put in the boot of the car.   The extendable handle is very good, I’m 5’2″ and OH is 6’3″ so very versatile.  I love the hand brake rather than stubbing your toes in sandals on a foot brake.  Friends are quite envious of this and it also confuses children how to release the brake and stops them trying to push your babies down the road.  The shopping basket is huge.  I hang my changing bag on the handle (with proper straps) though it’s not recommended by baby jogger and I can fill the basket to the brim with shopping.  I use it as a supermarket trolley and haven’t been done for shoplifting yet!!!  I look at the “in” single pushchairs and have a laugh to myself when looking at their baskets, you can hardly fit a flea in there.  The hoods are amazing, you will not need a stupid wobbly parasol at all.  They come down loads, are quiet and not clunky and have magnetic viewing flaps rather than noisy Velcro ones.

Car seats

We use maxi cosi cabriofix.  The car seat adaptors are the same ones.  Not one for the top and a different shaped one for the bottom.  They have an idiots L and R on them, but I still mix them up!!!!!  This has been a very popular choice for us to use.  We are still using them for short trips and when the babies are asleep at nearly 9 months old.  Yes, heavy at this age, but do-able.  We as a habit put the bottom car seat in first and then the top one, but in theory you could remove the bottom one without disturbing the top one.  There are safety straps to go across the baby but we’ve only used this a handfull of times as they as very sturdy on the adaptors.  My only niggle is that now they are 8 months old, you have to be careful of the bottom ones feet when putting the top one on.  But in all honesty, at 8 months old, they should be more in the pushchair seats!!

Bassinets (hate this word, will call them carrycots in the review)

Brilliant.  They are huge because you’re using the main seats, so both are the same size!!!  Took a bit for my brain to understand from what I’d read on the Internet how they work.  You remove the seat lining and snap on the carrycot fabric onto the seat skeleton.  Top and Bottom are reversed with the carrycots compared to the seats, but it’s very easy to work it out.  Your fingers get a good pasting snapping on the fabric though, awch!!  There is then two metal rods that fold out to make it look like a carrycot. I loved that the inside fabric of the carrycots were black.  Even with white mattress sheets, it was like a little cave in there.   Because the carrycots are good sized, I found fitted moses basket sheets didn’t fit, so used flat moses basket sheets folded under instead.  The hoods come down very low and kept the sun or wind at bay.  I had them both facing me, and with one small side step could see the bottom twin very easily.  I had no problem accessing the bottom twin at all.  Plenty of room.  I stopped using the carrycots at around 4-5 months old as the twins were getting more wriggly and I wanted them strapped into seats rather than having them wiggle out but I’d say I could have continued to use it for at least another month and my twins were big boys.  It was very easy to change the carrycots back into seats.

Seats

I really like the seats.  They are nicely padded, good strap adjusters with plenty of growing space to go up the pushchair for toddlers.  You adjust the incline of the seat at the top of the seat with a push lever.  This can be stiff especially with a pushchair liner half covering it!!  Mine were in these at around 5 months old (6 months recommended).  As I said before, they’re big twins and looked happy in them.  The lowest position does lie quite flat, so it’s at your discretion really.  But I preferred them safe in a 5 point harness than falling out of the carrycots.  Easy to use 5 point harness, very solid.  The foot rests can be adjusted up and down and tuck up or down as well.

The different combinations I’ve used are both twins facing me and both twins facing front.  I don’t like the one where they face each other at the moment but I’m sure I’ll be using this when they’re toddlers rather than babies.

I have them facing me when I want them to sleep.  I put the seats in full recline and it’s more or less flat.  Dummies in, hoods down and they’re asleep within 10 minutes.  It can be quite heavy in this configuration as a lot of the weight is on the front part of the chassis, but it’s not a killer.  I can go up steep hills no problem.

I have them facing the front when going for walks when they’re fully awake.  I like this position lots now as both have good viewing positions and can have a good nosey around.  What I did find was that if they do fall asleep, you can’t recline the seats without squashing the top twin.  I find this configuration the easiest to push as the weight is more distributed.

What I do if they fall asleep and want them reclining is (no way recomended by Baby Jogger!!) put the brake on and lift one twin in a seat, one at a time off the chasis and swivel them around to face me.  That way, I can then recline the seats without disturbing the babies.  Please remember to put the brake on, or you’ll look like a twit chasing a pushchair with a seat and baby in your hands.  There are 3 different sites on the chassis that you can have the seats click into.  Top, middle and bottom.  In double mode, I use top and bottom.  In single mode I use the middle to make it look more even.  The seats click on and off very easily.

Any other bits of info

It’s easy to get up kerbs.  Get the pushchair as close as you can to the edge, put one foot on the rear crossbar thingy and tip back.  I find it no problem and can do two steps up to shops and my bank.

What I do find annoying is because it’s such a slim pushchair, people don’t get out of your way.  They don’t see that you’re pushing more weight around, so I have to use my loud “excuse me” voice quite often or I run into their ankles.  When pushing a double, they move, pronto.

People comment to me how heavy the pushchair is, and it can be awkward if the pavement wants to incline towards the road as the BJCS want to follow it too.  You get good upper arm exercise by using it!! BUT my sister had a tandem about 14 years ago and that was heavy, it was ridiculous to push and she threw it away in the end.  Yes it’s heavier than a lovely little single, but it would be, you’ve got two on board.  When I do use it as a single (very rare), it zips round like crazy and I’ve got to watch myself as I’m used to the double weight.

I go to a buggy fit class once a week and I can run around with one hand on the handlebar, with me running at the side of the pushchair, making faces at the twins.  If it was so heavy, you wouldn’t be able to do this.  It turns easily and goes round corners nicely, you just have to remember that you’ve got a long wheel base.

My OH thinks the pushchair is solid and well built.  I’ve heard comments on how unstable it is and that’s complete rubbish.  I wouln’t use a pushchair that I thought was unstable.  I hang a very heavy Ju Ju Be Be-prepared on the handle and I can remove both twins and the seats and it doesn’t move an inch.  I have seen pushchairs tip and it would take a lot for it to do this.

I do have rain covers but haven’t used them yet.  They are single ones which probably will annoy me if it starts to rain.  Baby jogger needs to invent a tandem double one that will fling over the pushchair in whatever seat configuration you’re in.

I use buggy snuggle cosytoes as I found the baby jogger ones so boring in black.   I know the city mini is coming out with lovely new colours, so hopefully, these will fit it too.

This is a great pushchair for twins.  I bought the whole twin package – chassis and main seat unit, 2nd seat unit, 2 x car seat adaptors, 2 x bassinets kit and 2 x rain covers for under £700 at the end of 2010 which I think is a very reasonable price for a well built pushchair.